In fairness the advantage from going first in chess is really significant at high Elos, so a design improvement that resolves that imbalance would be pretty good for the game anyway. It would save playing two games to get one result.
But given that the only patch to chess in the last century was to prevent playing 0-0-0-0-0-0 with a promoted rook, I doubt I'll live to see that happen.
Chess played in matches, not games. Being white is like having serve in tennis. At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments.
I actually originally typed matches and then corrected it to "games" for that exact reason.
> Being white is like having serve in tennis.
Yep, exactly. But if there was no advantage to having serve in tennis, you wouldn't need to alternate it perfectly. Of course, coming up with a system in which there's no advantage (even one specific to certain playstyles) is nigh-impossible, let alone actually proving that to be true. Very slightly easier in chess, but probably still not achieveable.
> At higher levels, multiple games also allow for metagames and adjustments.
You could still play 30 games if you wanted, it's just that you'd have 30 1–0 or ½–½ results, instead of 15 2–0 or 1½–½ results.
Right now a single game of chess at a high level means basically nothing unless it's a black win or you know the result of the mirror match. This is very similar to the tennis analogy where holding serve is basically a non-event, and doesn't really affect the state of the game much until you see whether or not the other player does so as well. Someone who's 1–0 up after the first game on their own service isn't definitively "ahead", just like someone 1–0 up after playing a game of chess as white. They might be, but we don't know yet.
If white had no advantage, any individual game of chess is much more meaningful, as a win either way is a swing of momentum. Again, this fits the tennis analogy: any individual game is only interesting if the receiving player looks like they're a chance of winning it. This can be very boring in games with servebots, where the entire match comes down to the one 5-minute period where they weren't serving as well as they could have been, presenting an opening. If every single game was up for contention, the whole match would be much more interesting. It would also be easier to ascertain the better player, because smaller but more consistent differences in skill level would outweigh a single catastrophic mistake.
All that said the entire point of my comment was to make a reference to 0-0-0-0-0-0 because it's a fantastic move that more people should know about.
But given that the only patch to chess in the last century was to prevent playing 0-0-0-0-0-0 with a promoted rook, I doubt I'll live to see that happen.